oldcarfan

Maybe AMT could slap some vintage stock bodies on the NASCAR chassis and sell them as small town Hobby Stock cars with generic decals! I heard that a lot of old NASCARs ended their days like that.

Those are soooo cool!

These are soooo cool!

Being a long time Porsche fan, I've been wanting a Porsche Cayenne for years, but my income won't allow it. Now the older ones are in my price range, but sadly repair parts still command new Porsche prices. Guess I'll stick with my old Lexus RX. Repairs on it are a lot cheaper and rarely needed! Since I won't be getting the Porsche, I decided to make a scale one. A damaged Welly 1/24th Cayenne popped up on eBay and I couldn't pass it up. Luckily, it only had a couple of rub marks, and one mirror was off. When I opened the box, the mirror was loose in it, so I call it a win! This is a project I've wanted to tackle for a while, so here goes. The first picture is a screen cap of the one offered. As soon as it arrived I tried to decide what to do with it, but got stuck. Then today, I was working on my Cannonball entry, the Ford Expedition Night Train, and my ADHD kicked in. I pulled the tires off the Cayenne, and took the wheels and tires off a Maisto 1/27th Jeep Wrangler which turned out to be just the right size. I dechromed the wheels and shot them with a coat of Short Cuts Antique Bronze. I plan to give the truck a 3-4 inch lift to go with the offroad tires. I broke down several diecasts for parts a while back and put the parts away for later projects. A quick look offered up Jeep wheels and a push bar off a Jada Ford Raptor which had some fool KC lights already mounted. It took a little work, but I made it fit. The roof rack is scratch built from Plastruct based on some of the more popular 1:1 offerings. I'm going to modify the light bar off a Jada Bronco to fit that. The last three pictures show the sort of look I'm aiming for.

I made a little progress today! A good Cannonball Run depends on extra fuel capacity so mine would need fuel cells. To make things easier, I decided to make a 'pallet' so I could put all the components together and then just put it in the back as a unit. The Night Train Expedition will now have a 44 gallon central fuel cell with a 15 gallon secondary and I'll likely keep the truck's stock tank as well, which I believe was a 26 gallon capacity. That gives the truck a potential 85 gallon capacity when full. At a show a few years ago, I bought the police parts of a Lindberg Crown Vic and as luck would have it, it also had the Expedition police parts too. With some searching, I found the parts. I repurposed one of the barriers for Cannonball use, figuring it would be safer that way! LOL I'm still considering body colors. In the real world, grey or black would probably be a safe bet, but it could make for a boring entry. Right now, I'm kind of thinking of going a bright color, maybe a blue, green, or yellow. Any ideas? I mentioned breaking down a Welly Porsche GT3RS for parts and it reminded of something I've been looking for for a while. I came across a Porsche Cayenne at a good price so I got it, too. This one I'm working on as a side project. It'll be an overlander rig. And because I'm easily distracted, I had to take a break and go see how the house moving is going. This morning, they finished sawing it into sections and lifted the second floor sections off. A lot of people are mad that the University wanted to get rid of it, but at least someone is saving it from the wrecking ball.

Sad rant coming on. I came across a box of paint cans and put them on the shelf. There were several cans of old school Testors paint, I think the oldest was from around 2003? They were from way before the Rustoleum purchase. Anyway, I did a test squirt of them and they all seemed to work. Then I tried the Model Master cans. 4 out of 8 were bad. Either they'd sprung a leak like this one, or they sputtered blobs everywhere. What's worse is I really liked their colors made for specific car makers, especially the muscle colors. Even the old Tamiya colors and the full size Krylon cans seem to be okay.

Haven't seen one of these in a while. Looked factory fresh! NIce paint and everything.

I liked building the Monogram kits back when I was building NASCAR, but i like the AMT kits as chassis donors as they fit a lot of 1/25th bodies without a lot of modifications. I think I have a few somewhere, maybe I need to start digging.

Probably mentioned this before, but I have modeler's ADHD which means I went out to the hobby room to work yesterday and ended up breaking down several die-casts for parts, and opening and looking at kits I've had on the shelf for a long time. This morning was going to be different until a friend reminded me they were dismantling the old house a mile up the road. I had to drive by and watch for a while, then I remembered there were a couple of errands I needed to do, then other stuff... Anyway, it's now after lunch and I'm finally going to work out in the shop as soon as I get through playing on the internet. Just because, here's three pictures of the house they're moving. It's on University property and they were going to just knock it down until the townspeople heard and raised a ruckus. The University wants to put up another generic glass building or parking lot. The house is like 120 years old and very well maintained, so after the outcry someone bought it cheap and I understand it's going to be moved out to the lake. At least it will survive. It's interesting how they can take something so big apart like a giant model kit, move it, and then put it back together.

That's different from the later versions, right? I have a couple of 90s chassis that are smaller than the Monogram chassis.

I tried doing this with the melted styrene and it worked fairly well except for the stub on the back. If I can figure out how to get that done, it might work.

I came across this and it says it's for glass but it's a cyanoacrylate which doesn't play well with clear stuff. Not sure it would work for lenses, but now I'm curious if anyone has tried it? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CL9WJTVG/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0CL9WJTVG&ref_=sxts_sparkle_sbv&qid=1706497356&pd_rd_w=hlIzJ&content-id=amzn1.sym.417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b%3Aamzn1.sym.417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b&pf_rd_p=417820b0-80f2-4084-adb3-fb612550f30b&pf_rd_r=XEF7AMWQP9EZ36ZR006V&pd_rd_wg=kBUaO&pd_rd_r=f07a6c70-d9f9-462a-bdab-2aa5fc62f273&pd_rd_plhdr=t&th=1

Not to get shouted down but didn't Bburago make a diecast Ferrari 250 as well? Anyone know if it's even close to accurate?

We know where the Monogram NASCAR tooling ended up, but do we know if AMT's tooling is still around? I prefer using their chassis under 1/25 kits as it fits better. Maybe it isn't financially worth it for them to put out those kits anymore?

Nice build! I wonder if that's still available?

I actually found a Holy Grail that I'd been watching for for a long time and as it happens, ended up with three. It is the Otaki 1/24th Porsche 911. I kept an eye on them on eBay for years, but they were always too rich for my blood. Back in the COVID days, I was laid up and came across one sitting at $20 and put it on the watch list. No one seemed to notice it and I got it for $20 plus shipping. A few months later, I got another in the same sort of situation, and then finally found one with a little damage for $10. I consider myself lucky!

Maybe since the 1:1 car has now been found and is going to be restored, someone will be inspired to find the original kit tooling, or maybe to clone it?

If you reversed that body, it'd make a really cool Bonneville racer!

I've been looking for one of these a long time. I love Euro wagons. Here's hoping they'll rerelease it someday.

I haven't watched any NASCAR in years, so I might tune in to one of these, but we'll see. Can't you just imagine the pitstops? The guy swoops in off the track, they jack him up, drop the battery pack like a couple of oversized AAs, pop in more and off he goes. If nothing else, maybe it will lead to some advancements in roadgoing EVs. They could probably try a hybrid too, can you imagine the cheating opportunities that would give the teams?

O'Reilly's didn't have anything, maybe doing a restock? I found a can of the Antique Bronze at HL yesterday and will give it a try. Thanks for the ideas!

I'm looking for a good silver to use for a build I'm planning. I've used some Duplicolor before, and one worked well, and one didn't. The main problem with a lot of brands is that the flake is really coarse and out of scale. As I said, one Duplicolor worked really well, but when it was empty, I threw away the can and couldn't remember which one it was. Anyway, I'd like some ideas for spray cans. Is Tamiya a good option?

I've read a few times about using Bondic in place of clear lenses. I'm thinking about giving it a try. One thing I worry about is it discoloring. I used two part epoxy to make lenses on an instrument cluster and sometimes on headlight lenses, but I've noticed it tends to turn a sort of amber or brown color after a few years. I know Bondic may not have been around that long, but I'm wondering if this might be an issue. Any input would be appreciated.

Finally, I have a small update. After several days of uncomfortable temps, it was in the 60s today. That being said, I got off the couch and did some work in the hobby room. My can of DupliColor sandable primer decided to go all Rustoleum on me so I had to get another one. Didn't realize how much it had gone up in price. $12.99 a can is pretty steep for me, but it's still the best I've found. I got another coat on and did some more cleanup on the body. Since the chassis is the base, I refined the fit of the Lindberg F-150 frame to the Expedition's interior bucket. Also modified the Lindberg's rear suspension to lower it and added the front suspension from a Monogram Mustang as I didn't really want a 4WD. Not sure if that will work, but it'll do for now. I'm trying out my new hole punch to make a skid plate. Again, not sure it will work, but we'll see. Working on stance is not one of my favorite things, but this is about as low as I can go without some serious cutting. The rear probably needs to come down some more. I'm kind of liking these wheels and tires though they are kind of low profile. Trying to decide if they make it look too Donk. They were generously donated by a Welly Porsche 911 GT2 that I broke down for parts. The Expedition needs something big to fill the wheelwells and these should work. I may also use the seats and possibly some of the scoops from the Porsche's front if I can make them fit somewhere. I'm starting to think about body color, can't decide whether to go stealth or bright. So far I'm leaning towards Destroyer Grey for a low profile. Either that or go the opposite direction with maybe Acid Green, but that would be cop bait, right? Also, I looked at the engine I hope to use, it's a twin turbo Boss 302 from Texas 3D and it doesn't seem to need much clean-up. Once I get the chassis set, I'll have to figure out how to shoehorn that engine in.

Finally, I have an update. After several days of uncomfortable temps, it was in the 60s today. That being said, I got off the couch and did some work in the hobby room. I refined the fit of the Lindberg F-150 frame to the Expedition's interior bucket. Also modified the Lindberg's rear suspension and added the front suspension from a Mustang as I didn't really want a 4WD. Not sure if that will work, but it'll do for now. Working on the stance is not one of my favorite things, but this is about as low as I can go without some serious cutting. The rear probably needs to come down some more. I'm kind of liking these wheels and tires though they are kind of low profile. They were generously donated by a Welly Porsche 911 GT3 that I broke down for parts. The Expedition needs something big to fill the wheelwells and these may just work.